Presenting: The Longest Post of My Blogging Career!

I'm the type of person who likes to have all of her stuff together.  Before I present anything on here, I'd really like to have all my photos and everything in order.  But I'm realizing that with the speed of internet here, I might keep you waiting until Christmas for this update on the past month.  So against my best instincts I'm just going to go with what I've got now.  It feels kind of liberating, actually.  Like my own personal freedom on Independence Day.  God bless America.

Ok, anyway.  Speaking of the US, this past month we had a small group come from the States to do some ministry here.  It was three students - Carson, Abby and Anna - and also my mom, Debbie!  They came primarily to do distributions of mosquito nets and to do sports camps/VBS activities.  They stayed for three and a half weeks, and they were really fantastic!  Their time here was very packed, so I definitely won't be able to sufficiently cover everything in just one post.  But here are the high points.

First off, after arriving at the beginning of June, they went out to a slum area here in Kampala to meet a widows group that makes beaded jewelry to generate income.  Many beads were bought.  Then we headed out for Kapchorwa district near the Kenyan border and ended up doing four different mosquito net distributions and a day of playing with the local children in the community of Greek, which I think I've talked about before.  My mom also found a ladies' sewing group and stayed with them for a day - getting a beautiful, authentic African outfit out of the deal, which all the Ugandan ladies said was "very smart."  

All in all, we were in Kapchorwa for a few days, finishing it off with a hike around beautiful Sipi Falls, and then we headed out to Kaberamaido district.  Our time was very full there!  We spent each afternoon that week at the orphanage, playing with the children, doing Bible story skits, and giving them enough mosquito nets so that each child can now sleep under a net.  We moved around each morning doing different things, including going to a fishing village on the lake to do a net distribution, meeting with the widows group we're working with there to pray with them and distribute 2,000 notebooks and 500 pens for their children and orphans they care for to use in school, and meeting with the Arrow Boys group we're working with to pray for them and hear more about their stories.  We finished off our time there with a youth conference we organized for 100 secondary school students.  Our friend who is actually from Kaberamaido led the conference on issues of character and developing a vision for their life, and it went really well!  It was a great way to end our time in Kaberamaido.

Next, we headed back to Kampala and joined up with a ministry called Sports Friends International.  Sports Friends combines Christian ministry with sports activities for several different communities around Kampala - many that target at-risk children.  We spent one morning with a group of street boys, for example, which was a rather moving experience for me.  But more on that later!  We also got to do a few more mosquito net distributions along the way (the team has provided nearly 2,500 nets - an amazingly large number!  We're still working on getting them all out to people..).  Then, to wrap up the "ministry" portion of the team's trip, we helped facilitate a games tournament called Kids Games for about 800 orphans and other vulnerable children, which was a really wonderful experience.  A great way to top off their ministry here.  

Before the team left, we all took a quick trip up to Murchison Falls in northwest Uganda and went on a fun little safari tour.  A rather momentous occasion for me, actually, as I discovered that the warthog could possibly be one of my new favorite animals!  

So the team left out for the U.S. the last week of June, and we are just so grateful for them and their willingness to come out and serve.  I could say so much more about them and their time here, but this is quickly becoming a mini-novel, and I know all too well (being one myself) that blog readers are not known for having the longest attention span.  : )  So I'll stop here for now.

But not without showing some photos!  I'll post one below, but I'm also working on uploading several hundred photos to my photo site online - a gargantuan task, given how slow internet is here.  So here's the deal.  I'm going to go ahead and give you the link so you can begin looking through the photos, BUT there is one quid pro quo: you must promise to go back later after I've uploaded all of the photos, because I have so many more to share and have very ambitious plans of also adding captions later!  So class, if I let you know when everything's up can you promise to go back and look?  Please and thank you?

Ok, now that we have that settled I'm going to continue killing mosquitos with my own bare hands.  Ha.  They're all over our house, and they really are nasty little suckers!

Thanks so much for reading and for supporting me here.  And thanks for the many well wishes for my birthday yesterday.  It was a great day!  I've been so encouraged in so many ways lately.  I love and appreciate you all, my family and friends.  Now go eat some barbecue and set off lots of fireworks for me!

From L to R: Carson, Abby, Anna, me, Debbie (aka "Mama Jennifer")